The family that founded and grew the Marriott hotel chain into a global brand is donating $100 million through its charitable foundations to support Mayo Clinic’s expansion and investment in clinical space and technologies in Rochester.
The gift is among the largest in Mayo’s history and builds on a relationship that began in 1962 when the daughter of Bill and Donna Marriott received a relatively new and lifesaving heart surgery.
“Our family’s relationship with Mayo Clinic has always been personal,” Bill Marriott said in a Mayo news release announcing the gift. “We have seen firsthand how Mayo changes lives.”
Mayo in 2023 unveiled its $5 billion project to improve convenience and care for patients traveling worldwide to the Rochester campus. The project is simultaneously reshaping the Rochester skyline and streamlining the spaghetti layout of medical buildings across the campus.
A two-story welcome center at the heart of the project is being named the Marriott Family Atrium in recognition of the gift.
Bill Marriott, the longtime chief executive of Marriott Corp., served on Mayo’s board of trustees and helped guide the health system through a fundraising campaign that ended in 2009.
His late wife, Donna, had co-chaired a leadership council of Mayo supporters and benefactors in Washington, D.C. One of the foundations providing the Mayo gift is in their name while the other honors Bill’s late parents, Marriott co-founders J. Willard and Alice Marriott.
Marriott’s global chain of more than 9,000 hotels and rental properties includes a hotel that is directly attached to the Mayo campus. Mayo’s president and chief executive, Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, called the Marriotts “extraordinary advocates” for the health system.
